ផែនការ​បង្កើត​បក្ស​ថ្មី​របស់​អតីត​តំណាង​រាស្ត្រ​បក្ស​សង្គ្រោះ​ជាតិ ​ប្រឈ...

by Manekseka Sangkum:

This is how the once "mighty" Khmer Empire has been reduced to this tiny dot on the world map today. Both Cambodia's traditional invaders and immediate neighbours to the East and West [Annam/Dai Viet/Vietnam and Siam/Thailand] have seized upon this Achilles’ heel in Cambodia's internal weaknesses or frictions and exploited these weaknesses to full effect.

Regional war-lords, provincial governors, rival princes - all have grievances and personal ambitions to fulfil but these ambitions and personal preoccupations are always couched in national terms and importance while their realisations would – of necessity - also require third-party intervention and support. In recent times, such unprincipled figures include prince Sihanouk, [and later his sons prince Rannariddh and now king Sihanomi], and within the Pol Pot regime [which came into political existence also courtesy of North Vietnam's involvement and designs] there were also men like Ing Sary, Y Chhean [once Pol Pot's head of personal security guards now serving within the Hun Sen regime] as well as all the familiar names whom Hanoi hand-picked to head the post Pol Pot regime following their ousting of that regime in 1979, such as Chea Sim, Heng Samrin, Hun Sen et al. These men would have formed the Vietnamese's 'Plan B', in all probability, as they had served within Democratic Kampuchea's Eastern Zone military and administrative authority and would have been involved in the country's defence against Vietnam along the troubled border. 'Plant A' would have likely entailed men like Pen Sovann and others who had indeed been initially installed by Hanoi as nominal heads of the new post-DK regime; men who had been either kidnapped or recruited by the Vietnamese since their teenage years so as to acclimatise them to Vietnamese cultural climate and political indoctrination in preparation for their expected roles or service within any new Vietnam-backed Cambodian regime.

What such details confirm and illustrate is how far in advance the Vietnamese had laid out their ground work in anticipation of finally being able to accomplish that blue-print and culminate it in reality on the ground. Pen Sovann himself would have been of the same or similair age group as most other KR leadership figures such as Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Kiev Samphan, Noun Chea, Hou Nim, Hou Yun etc. and so even as Pol Pot was being invited for tea with Ho Chi-minh in Hanoi – an occasion obviously used to gauge Pol Pot’s level of subordination and loyalty to Vietnam as well as to stress Hanoi’s own priorities and concerns - the latter would have been confident and reassured that Pol Pot's own pre-eminence and leadership status within his newly formed revolutionary regime was anything but irreplaceable. 

This must be the kind of lessons in Vietnamese-Cambodian relations that is far from lost on many of the current members of the CPP administration's hierarchy; and most certainly not on Hun Sen who has done far more and better than most to reassure and assuage Hanoi of his personal unconditional, unwavering loyalty and obedience in exchange for their continued backing and patronage.

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